[FoRK] Nietzsche's Severe Rationalism

[Stephen D. Williams]

I agree, forward progression rules, for good reasons.

I will point out some perceived backsliding that comes to mind, mostly 
local and possibly necessary to get out of local minima, but apparently 
regressive in a certain realm:

The rise of Chinese science, and then its stifling via some combination 
of bad government and sick philosophy / religion.
Same thing with Arab science.
The rise and fall of Aztecs, although that didn't get much out of the 
primitive stages to really be significant.
The fall of the Roman Empire, although that was fueled by an artificial 
and unsustainable slave / conquering model.

Unless us thinkers / rationalists dwindle and we become saturated with 
fundamentalists, as some are trying to accomplish both in the US and 
Middle East, I don't see it happening again.  I believe we have reached 
a critical mass in various ways that will prevent real regression overall.

sdw

Kevin Elliott wrote:
>
> On Jan 30, 2008, at 10:37 AM, Corinna Schultz wrote:
>
>> On Jan 29, 2008 3:07 PM, Kevin Elliott <k-elliott at wiu.edu> wrote:
>>> This is one of those ideas that I completely reject.  By and
>>> reasonable measure we've progressed.
>>
>> Well, yes we have. By fits and starts, to be sure. But is it
>> inevitable? Will it continue indefinitely? The notion of Progress, is
>> that we are gradually getting better and better, and will continue
>> getting better. *That* is the fallacy. If we are to continue
>> progressing we have to work for it, and plan for it, etc.
>
> What the hell... this is FoRK... if ever there were a place for boldly 
> making claims...
>
> I'll grant that it's a tougher thing to prove but I'll put forth the 
> following:
>
> Man will inevitably advance.   My evidence:
>
> I put for the the following earlier:
>
>> Divide all of human history into 100 year chunks.  You can now choose
>> one of those centuries to be randomly born into (no cherry picking
>> like paths!).  I submit that the sensible choice is the 20th century.
>
> I further submit that with very few exceptions this probably holds 
> true going all the way to Ape Men wandering around on Africa.
>
> In other words:  Better to be born in 1900 than any time earlier... 
> better 1800 than any time earlier...
>
> It might be necessary to stretch the time a bit to cover weird 
> events... say 200 year chunks rather than 100.  Depends on things like 
> how bad things were world wide in the 1300s (100 year war).  
> Admittedly, this is anecdotal  evidence... but as evidence goes "all 
> of human history" is a pretty convincing anecdote.
>
> Why this is so is a completely separate question.  My gut is that it's 
> all about evolution, the nature of economic progress, and 
> competition.  But I'm pretty certain that we aren't going to stop the 
> engine of progress any time soon.
>
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Stephen D. Williams 703-371-9362C 703-995-0407Fax 94043 AIM: sdw